Rei Kawakubo remained on a color kick for Fall ’96, trading in Spring’s rainbow brights for a muted palette lifted, it seemed, from the Old Masters. The designer’s choice of brocaded velvet—the show was titled “Flowering Clothes”—contributed to its arty vibe.

The show was an intimate one, presented in an anachronistic boxing ring–like setting. “Kawakubo’s spectacle of doe-eyed models silently posing in richly hued flocked-velvet smocks felt more like a private viewing of a Vermeer exhibition than a trumped-up fashion show,” wrote Vogue. While some of the mantle-like coats could be described as monastic, the same could not be said for sweaters with Basquiat-like scribbles, pointed-toe men’s shoes, or coquette’s elbow-length gloves. Seductive is the right word for the clingy, layered jersey dresses at the tail end of the show, while “childlike” flower prints were more playful. Punk made its presence felt, too, in the oversize safety pins used as fastenings. To Vogue, the clothes on “Kawakubo’s doll-faced dreamers” seemed to possess “a naïve carelessness that set off a whole new mood in Paris”—one that offered an alternative to the prevailing mode of minimalism.